A Birth day

"That sounds fine," Angus said. "Ginger enjoys her time in the kitchen, but it makes Anise nervous. If she could just learn to relax and not take herself so seriously in the kitchen, that would be great. She acts like its life and death surgery. I know baking requires accuracy, but regular main dishes and things are far more forgiving. If she could just learn to lighten up, she might enjoy it. She doesn't need to measure herself by anyone else's scale. Maybe I can inspire her to keep assisting in the kitchen until she learns it isn't so hard. And quite honestly, it wouldn't hurt Sam and Victor to learn to cook too. After all, it shouldn't be entirely up to Ginger and Anise to do all the cooking for the four of them. Maybe we should try again to assign each of them, in a rotation, to help with breakfast, lunch, and supper. Lunch, though, while they're working, would need to be whatever they want for the four of them to pack in their lunches. If you think about it, 3 meals a day, seven days a week, stretched across four kids. That's five meals apiece every week they'd be helping in. That might teach time something--maybe. What do you think?"

"Good idea. I think it's good if you and Aria can get out. I mean, we shouldn't relax entirely, in case Priscilla is still going to try to pull something, but I think, if you're careful, you could go enjoy part of a day in London. It would be good for you both. I think we should think about getting a few beginners' cookbooks and putting them on the bookshelf in here. They can get some ideas from them. I know there are a lot of cookbooks now that have recipes using 5 ingredients or less. I think that might be a good place to start. They could decide what they might like to try, and we can guide them through it. If they give us a couple days' notice, I can make sure we have their ingredients on hand. How are they with laundry? Are we letting them do their own laundry? If not, we need to start encouraging that. Maybe teaching them how to fold things--especially things like sheets. Doing some house cleaning, and some other things. I should take them each to Gringotts and teach them about banking and budgeting. They should learn to do some gardening and some home repair, and probably a hundred other things I'm forgetting. If they think they want to be married next year this time, then they all four need to learn to step up.

"You know," he sighed, "I'm going to want to teach them all these things, and I'll end up terrifying them, and then they'll live here forever. It's funny how I rather took the time we had with them for granted because of nitwits like Priscilla and Pearl. And now, it feels like there's no time left to teach our kids all the things they need to know to be functioning adults. I feel like I messed up and I'm out of time."

The house grew quiet as the kids all went to sleep. Angus liked this time of day because when the kids felt safe enough to sleep, it somewhat felt like all was right with the world for just awhile. And, since Marcus felt like things were safe enough to leave, even if Aria were still here, it did give Angus more of a feeling that things were safe temporarily. He was becoming aware that the last couple of years had taken away from him the ability to easily relax and stop looking over his shoulder. Suzanne and Priscilla had trained him to always be at the ready. Still, the quiet at night still felt as peaceful for him as it got.

He got up, went to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of firewhiskey, just because he appreciated the taste of it and it was a good way to unwind after a particularly busy day. He listened to the soft sounds of the fae language as they established their posts for protecting the house for the night. Minos was checking on them to make sure they were all where he wanted them, and it felt reassuring for Angus.

He picked up the French wizarding newspaper and he started to read. There, buried in a little article on the 7th page was a small mention of an inmate of the wizarding prison who had been found dead of "natural causes" in his cell. It was Dominic--Priscilla's husband. Angus knew it wasn't natural causes. It put him a little more on guard, but he wanted to make sure he talked to Robert about it the next time he saw him. He set the newspaper out to show the article to Ruby when she came downstairs.

"I don't doubt he's dead, but I don't believe it was natural causes, not for one moment," Angus said. "I'm sure Robert's seen it by now already. When I see him next, I'll ask him. I don't think there's any emergency there tonight. Yeah, this can be one of my favorite times of day, when the kids are all asleep and the house is quiet for the night. it's hard to have sixteen people and a dog in one house and have it ever be truly quiet. Maybe tomorrow, now that Elwood is settled, I can get with Evan and see what I can do to help him and his family. It has to be hard, losing absolutely everything and having to start again at ground zero and rebuild all of it. I haven't had a chance to help him because of all of this drama with Pearl. And then there's the matter of Rosaria and Carlo and the reconstruction of Edward's place in Tuscany too. I know it was all Pearl's work. I'm not going to say a syllable of that to Elwood. He does not need to know. He is not responsible for Pearl's crimes, but I do want to help them rebuild in Tuscany if there is something I can do to help."

"Good idea. You know, I'll talk to Evan and Edward, and I'll wager all i'll find out is that they have it all covered. They're like that, you know. I'll want to help, and they won't have a damned thing for me to do." He sipped on his whiskey, and as he did, he got an ornery thought. "You know, I'll do that. I'll offer, and they'll turn me down. And then I'll get 'em. Both of them. And I know exactly how I'm gonna do it. I haven't been hanging out with Robert and Michael all these years not to be able to take a play out of their handbook. I might need a co-conspirator or two, but I know how I can fix them." He laughed, with a boyish grin.

"I know what they're going to tell me," Angus said. "They're going to say that just knowing they have our support is all they need. I'll make sure they know they have our support. They won't forget it anytime soon."

He finished his drink and set the glass aside, yawning. "Suppose we ought to turn in soon? I don't know if Elwood is an early riser, but I suppose we'll find out. I should have asked but it never occured to me. I'll try to check on him a time or two during the night." Minos gestured to Angus that the Fae would keep an eye on him and if he needed something they would wake him or Ruby.

"That would work for me," Angus said. "Does that sound like a decent solution just for one night, Ru?" Angus asked her.